Bethesda's offerings at E3 last week included "Wolfenstein: The New Order," Shinji Mikami's "The Evil Within," and "The Elder Scrolls Online." A fine presentation, I reckon, but notable for the lack of any word on "Prey 2" or a new "Fallout" project.

Pete Hines, the vice president of PR and marketing at Bethesda Softworks, has been making the rounds since then, though, giving fans much-needed (though not always illuminating) updates on his company's stable of games.

"Prey 2," ostensibly developed by Human head, has been on shaky ground for almost two years now, so it's not surprise that Bethesda didn't trot it out at E3. Full development apparently stalled out as far back as November 2011, was "in limbo" in October 2012, and reportedly punted over to Arkane Studios, the team behind "Dishonored," as of May of this year.

Bethesda hasn't been eager to show the game off because, well, it's just not very good, according to Hines. "We're not going to just proceed blindly with something that isn't good enough," he explained to IGN. "We've been very specific about why, and ... when that gets addressed and changed or whatever, at that point we can give an update."

"We spent a lot of time and money and effort trying to make this thing happen and support folks, but at the same time, you just can’t keep throwing money at it and saying, ‘sure, it’ll eventually work,’" he continued, presumably retracting his pharyngeal jaw and wiping up the hot acid he spit every where. "You have to have the discipline to say, ‘it’s not good enough. It’s not hitting the quality bar. Why isn’t it?'"

"What is the chance that we have some amazing, unbelievable game and we’re just not talking about it for no reason?" he asks. "Zero."

While Hines didn't comment directly on the rumor that Arkane had taken up development on "Prey 2" -- or maybe he wasn't asked -- Hines' language in the rest of the interview suggests that Human Head are still at the helm, at least on paper.

Hines was predictably more polite when addressing why his company hasn't revealed what Bethesda Game Studios is working on, having relatively recently wrapped up on "The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim."

"I mean [fans] have been clammering [sic] for a 'Fallout' game for a long time now," Hines told Polygon. "What people need to understand — whether it is Bethesda Game Studios, Arkane or anybody — expecting information like that in any short period of time after they moved off one project to the other is really unrealistic."

"We are not into annual franchises — just trying to spin out a version of our game year, after year, after year — like, we have never done that. I don't see that it is something that we are doing anytime soon," he continued. "But that doesn't mean that we are going to take our time and wait six or seven years in between a game that a studio puts out. But these are big games that take a long time and folks need to understand that we have a very certain way of going about things."

The general consensus is that the Todd Howard-led Bethesda Game Studios is working on "Fallout 4." It's predecessor, "Fallout 3," came out way back when, in 2008, though the spun-off "Fallout: New Vegas" came out in 2010.

By the by, Obsidian Entertainment CEO Feargus Urquhart says it would be "awesome" to work on "Fallout: New Vegas 2." Y'know, if Bethesda are just in the market for a character-driven role-playing game set in a post-nuclear wasteland.